STRIKING IN BANGLADESH

Were the popular uprisings that forced Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina into exile spontaneous?

 

Sir Charlattam

Some readers may not know why we are going to talk about Bangladesh? Or where it is on the map and its regional importance, but in just a few minutes you will know why we are talking about it.

Just a few weeks ago, a sudden popular uprising that originated in university circles swept the Islamic-majority country, forcing its president Sheikh Hasina to flee to neighbouring India. Behind the demands (for quotas for public posts) and the claims of Islamist groups that led the mobilisations and subsequent clashes with the security forces in Dhaka, there are other actors who have other interests and who are the real stakeholders in creating this.

First and foremost, what has happened comes amid heightened tensions between Beijing and Washington that have been fomenting unrest across the Indo-Pacific riverine belt. Given this regional backdrop, one cannot help but be suspicious about the supposed ‘spontaneity’ of these mobilisations. If you are already suspecting who the puppet masters behind this revolt are, you have certainly got it right... the CIA.

Washington has an extensive record of subversive actions of all kinds and intensity against the political sovereignties of other nations, and Bangladesh was to be no exception. Since the end of the Second Great War in 1945, every continent has known in some form the undemocratic and highly damaging methodologies of influencing the internal affairs of countries.

Bangladesh is strategically sandwiched between India and Myanmar (currently in an internal crisis) with an exit to the Bay of Bengal providing a position from where the US can monitor China's continental activities. That is why they would have been strongly suggesting that it cede St. Martin's Island for a naval air base.

It's like a bad habit, an ugly, bad habit that the US is unable to curb. Like the drug addict or the compulsive gambler the State Department bureaucrats, their conspirators at Langley and their colleagues in the 16 secret agencies that populate the monstrous state of the Union, cannot restrain themselves when someone resists not obeying American ‘democracy’. One who is already well known for managing these ‘regime changes’ in the region is Under Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Donald Lu, targeted in this case as the messenger for Hasina to pave the way for handing over St. Martin Island for the purpose of installing a military base.

It was this same messenger (and not of democracy) who pressured the then Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan to allow new military bases to be installed in Pakistan with a view to making inroads into Afghanistan, otherwise things would become very difficult for him. The Khan government's refusal was immediate and not only that, it began to forge ties with Russia that certainly infuriated Washington. Before long Khan was the subject of massive demonstrations, a no-confidence motion in his parliament and his subsequent dismissal. Certainly not.

When we talk about coups and colour revolutions, the inevitable citation is Washington DC.

Predictably, Washington was there even before Bangladesh existed as an independent state. But long before that, Britain was laying the minefield to keep India in the picture. Precisely in the aftermath of a bloody war between Pakistan and an uprising in the east of Pakistan in 1971, the then PM Sir Edward Richard George Heath and Richard Nixon were in close contact about the situation in which Henry Kissinger had much to do with the genocide that was to follow. This war took place in the shadow of the Cold War and it was for this reason that Washington nurtured the secession of East Bengal from a USSR-backed Pakistan while preventing India from escalating against Islamabad. But in a political twist just a few years later, Pakistan and Washington further tightened their intelligence relations between the ISI and the CIA that would result in the creation of the Taliban.  

Sheikh Hasina's case seems to be a carbon copy and her refusal to the continued US pressure to cede territory that will undoubtedly be used to harass the People's Republic of China, has given her a high profile and will no doubt further enhance her political career and strengthen her reputation both in India and with her Chinese counterparts.

Washington's pressures come as no surprise since, despite its relations with the countries of the region, it has tried to impose its own anti-China agenda on them by dabbling in trade sanctions and diplomatic pressure to dissuade them from buying Russian goods, keeping a safe distance from China and engaging them in security arrangements like India with the QUAD, which can nonetheless deal with US pressures.

What happened with Hasina and Khan is not new. The history of how Washington DC tries to condition governments to follow its policy guidelines of the moment is a long one. Its methods and ends are as reprobate as they are varied and have nothing to do with democracy, moral values, respect for international law, let alone freedom.

Hasina was already receiving signals that she had to comply with Washington's demands in the Indo-Pacific. A photo with Joe Biden at the G20 summit in New Delhi on 9 September 2023, she realises today from exile, meant nothing.